The Queen of Cups lives in the world of feeling and the warbling ripples of dreams as they end and begin and end and begin again. This Queen is comfortable with the ebb and flow of emotional engagement and feeling responses. She knows that every emotion has value and that our feelings surrounding an emotion can either free us into what we need or trap us under what we reject.
Hebe exclusively possessed the ability to restore youth to mortals and would offer her cup to those humans who were favored by the gods.
In the ancient religion of Greece, we see a reflection of this queen in the goddess Hebe. She was the youngest among the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus and was known as the cupbearer. Hebe was revered for serving magical elixirs and sweet ambrosia to fend off or even reverse the aging of gods and goddesses. Hebe exclusively possessed the ability to restore youth to mortals and would offer her cup to those humans who were favored by the gods. The word ambrosia is associated with the lifeforce which can not be replaced. As lifeforce drains from us by way of time and also by way of stress and illnesses of the body, mind, and heart, we age and eventually die. Hebe could restore that force by offering the contents of her cup.
Hebe was worshiped as the goddess of mercy and forgiveness. Both mercy and forgiveness cut our energetic and emotional ties to those who have created harm and bond us with energies that move lightly, like youth itself. To render mercy is to alleviate the soul from carrying the crimes and poor actions of others similarly to forgive is to understand how a wrong came to exist and allow the past to be carried away on the river’s swift currents.
If you are jealous, be jealous. If you are angry, be angry. When you grieve, grieve with gusto.
The Queen of Cups offers us the effervescent and healing waters within her cup to quench our thirst and bathe our bodies. She teaches us to accept, and even welcome, our emotions and the messages they deliver to us. The Queen of Cups fears no depth, be it in the center of the ocean or the center of her soul she respects what lies beneath. She encourages us to acknowledge our feelings in truth. If you are jealous, be jealous. If you are angry, be angry. When you grieve, grieve with gusto. When we do this, we come to know ourselves in truth which grants us liberation from the illusions we hold in regard to the self and the desires and needs of that self. When we face our own emotions and feelings we become capable of facing them in others.
Youth belongs to those who love as if they have never been hurt but not because they push their feelings aside or pretend past pain never happened at all, but rather because they have felt the hurt keenly. They know they can survive it and that they never want to give that hurt, if it can be avoided, to another. They know exactly how deep their love goes and that the desire to give their heart is worthy and powerful. Youthfulness is buoyant and resilient, and so are we when our feelings are held in esteem and processed with courage even when it lacks grace.
May our hearts be unjaded.
-Michelle Embree
www.michelleembree.com
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